


Problems and Solutions

by Chocolatebars



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Confusion, Family Feels, Gen, Sad with a Happy Ending, Slice of Life, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocolatebars/pseuds/Chocolatebars
Summary: So, Brooklyn Nine-Nine takes place on another planet right? In an alternate reality? Because -gestures around wildly.Jake and Amy and Rosa and Charles and Terry and Holt if they hadn't been cops.Plus Gina, because she's Gina.
Relationships: Charles Boyle & Rosa Diaz & Gina Linetti & Jake Peralta, Charles Boyle & Rosa Diaz & Jake Peralta & Amy Santiago, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago, Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt, Rosa Diaz/Gina Linetti
Comments: 12
Kudos: 59





	1. Problem

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this more as a comfort piece to myself than anything else. 
> 
> Here's what we must remember:  
> 1\. Black Lives Matter
> 
> 2\. B99 is (unintentional?) Copaganda, because it paints a picture of a group of cops who are always right trying to fight criminals who are always wrong. It shows, and leads us to believe, that the world is black and white when they are arresting a perp. That's not how it works in real life. ACAB. 
> 
> 3\. B99 is woke, it truly is, and that's why people who watch it are young, well informed, and that I'd why it is being the questioned the most, out of all the cop shows in the world. This sucks, especially and a fan.
> 
> 4\. This is not the time to talk about TV shows. This is not the time to comment "Jake Peralta would never!!" On posts about police brutality. This is the time, to learn, to protest, to speak up, to make the world a better place for all of us. TV shows and fictional characters come later. Let's talk about the real people first. And in keeping with that tune, do not read ahead before please please please please clicking on the link below.
> 
> · [Black Lives Matter](https://t.co/3wp3gDdDs1?amp=1)
> 
> ///TW///mentions of violence, sexual abuse.

JAKE

Jake Peralta decided he wanted to be a cop at the ripe old age of seven, when he saw Bruce Willis in a tank top, running through corridors with blood on his face, punching bad guys, and hanging off of buildings with _swag_. He also saves the girl and gets his family, and little Jake thinks it would be _awesome_ if he could reunite his family. His dad had said he still loved Jake, right? Maybe Jake could punch some bad guys for his dad, and he'd come back, just like Holly did! 

He imagined himself, finding hidden drugs, sniffing out hardened criminals, (and increasingly, as he grew older) rescuing pretty girls and cute boys from bad men. He daydreamed about gunfights with gangsters, of running from bombs, of talking into walkie-talkies while a crowd gathered, looking at him with adoration. He dreamed of being a _hero._

He's in the police academy when he realises cops are _not_ heroes. 

They're taught to shoot first, ask questions later. They're taught that it's okay to save some people at the cost of others. They're taught that violence is the answer, but _only when it comes from them._

Jake sees palms being greased with the money of criminals, he witnesses his drunk academy colleagues bully a black teenager because " _he's probably a druggie, right? This is practice!_ " 

It doesn't sit right with him, it gives him this weird itch on his sternum that doesn't go away. It gets harder and harder to ignore, until one day, he breaks. 

He breaks in front of Gina, his childhood friend.  
"Dude, I don't know why you're surprised." She said, coolly, observing her recently painted nails. "Didn't I tell you about how Keegan's brother got arrested when he was seventeen, and they didn't even let him call his parents for twelve hours? Cops suck." 

"Yes, yes, b-but I thought it was-"

"It was just a few of them?" She tsked, pityingly. "Maybe. But the system is all kinds of fucked up."

"What should I do, Gina?!"

She looked at him with her piercing eyes, and after ensuring her nails were dry, rubbed his arm. "If it troubles you this much now, then it's only gonna get worse. Either you've got to learn to stomach it, or you get out now." 

He groaned, hands over his eyes. His dreams, ideas, were shattering in front of him. He felt hopeless, he felt cheated by a dirty system that tried to pull him under, too.

"Hey, sweetie." She said, gentler. "I know you want to help people. There are so many ways of helping people, okay? This is not the end of the world. Now get out, David is coming to pick me up in ten." 

Jake chuckled and drove back home, wondering _how the hell_ he was going to deal with a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty-three?!

ROSA

She's always had anger issues. Her family has always been too silent, too restrictive. She is told to 'control her emotions', and that her fury is 'unladylike'.

Her temper has always run hot, she was born this way. And it would be okay if literally _everything_ in her life didn't make her so _angry_. 

Her parents expect her to be as helpful as her older sister, as enthusiastic as the younger. She has to learn to cook, she has to pray and she has to get straight As. She has to uphold the honour of her respectable family.  
That makes her mad. All she wants to be is free.

Her sisters complain that she isn't 'fun', that she doesn't 'share', and that it's always she who 'started it' ! That makes her mad. Why can't they give her space? 

Society expects her to get an education, find a man, and have his babies. But one season of Saved By The Bell convinced her maybe she didn't want too settle down with a man! She didn't know what to make of this at first, didn't discover the term bisexual until later, but she knew that when her Tia Maria said stuff like, "How will you find a husband, Rosalita?!" , all she wanted to do was scream back, that maybe she would find a wife who loved her the way she was. She would have given anything to see Tia Maria's expression. But for the sake of her mother, she ignored her aunt and left the room. "Dios Mio, that girl is so angry all the time!" Maria exclaimed.  
That makes her mad. All she wants is to be herself.

Her anger gets her in trouble. She fights with her parents, siblings, friends, ballet instructors, gymnastics teachers, school tutors.

It gets out of hand, she runs away from home, she breaks into houses, she steals things, her parents forbid her from coming back home.

She lives on the streets for a while, spends all her gymnastics competitions prize money.  
She finds shelter, she finds a home, at an old abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of New York City. There are people like her, kids run away from foster homes, abusive homes. The gay kids whose parents had kicked them out. The kids who'd lost their parents and had no place to go. Kids, like her, who'd committed petty crimes, like stolen a candy bar from the gas station, or tried to sell some weed to afford their grandmother's chemo. Kids whose only crime had been being different- a different sexuality, a different colour. In this rag tag bunch of misfits, she found friends. They looked after one another, and Rosa became 'of the streets'.

She knew she had far to go in life, she knew she was smart, but right now she was scared, lonely and angry. 

Then one day the cops came. They didn't even know why, or how. Maybe someone had tipped them off, maybe they were bored and were looking for something to do, maybe they had a new commissioner to impress.

Rosa was grabbed and none too gently, pushed to the back of a cop car. They were taken to the station, and then she was taken to juvie. She got three months, followed by a year of community service. 

She was livid, enraged; but she knew she was lucky. Some of the kids didn't even make it to the precinct. In between death and a few months of discomfort, she knew she had gotten off, more than lightly. 

Rosa was shaken to the core. She'd seen her friends be captured, bound, beaten up.  
Her sister came to pick her up after the three months were up, and took her to live with her and her new husband. They were simple idiots, according to Rosa, but they loved her and cared for her. They held her at night when she shook with rage. 

It was her sister who suggested it. "You could become a cop. Help the kind of kids you once were." 

She snorted, but it stuck in her brain. Maybe she could make a change? All she wanted was for no one to go through what she had been through. 

Six months later, she went to Michael's house to meet his ailing grandmother. Michael had been one of the boys who'd been shot in the cop raid. "I'm going to be a cop and help those kids," she told the old lady.

Ol' mammy laughed. "If you want to help those kids, the last thing you should do is become one of those motherfuckers." 

"But, I can change-"

"The entire system is bullshit, honey. They'll change you, they'll break you. You're better off helping no one, than being a cop." 

Rosa left the tiny apartment, feeling more confused than she had in months. She thought she'd had a plan, but the conversation had made her more disillusioned than ever.

AMY 

At the age of seven, Amy knew multiplication tables upto twenty-five, she knew not to tell her mama that daddy still smoked, she knew Santa Claus didn't exist, and she knew she wanted to be a police officer one day.

Her father was one, her grandfather was one. Several of her uncles were cops, and it was what most of her brothers wanted to be, too. 

And she knew how proud her father would be if she followed in his footsteps. So she knew was going to be a cop one day. 

She didn't question her desire even once. Even when she chose her one of her double majors to be Art History, and people kept asking her, "But why? Don't you want to go into the NYPD?", she didn't question it. It was what she'd always desired, wasn't it? It had been what she'd always pictured. So why question it now? 

"Maybe it's just because David's a cop, and you just want to beat David," Tony had said to her once. She'd growled at him. How _dare_ he think that David would influence her life in any way!?

It was true, she did want to beat David at life. Maybe that was the only way she'd win her parents' approval. But her desire to be a cop was bigger than that, okay? It was more than just wanting to beat David, who was top of his class at the Police Academy; who, immediately out of the academy, got an amazing placement in Manhattan, where he could rub shoulders with the city's finest-

_No._ She insisted. She wanted to be cop for herself, not because she was in a lifelong competition with her older brother, where the prize was much-coveted parental approval.

She graduated with honors, of course, with a double major in Art History and Psychology, and minoring in Library sciences, a lifelong love. And then she headed to the Academy.

David had made it sound so good. He had made it sound fun. _An experience of a lifetime_ , he said it was, the New York Police Academy.

Not that Amy didn't have fun, but, sometimes, it was hard, and she found herself wanting to cry, and - okay. Amy did _not_ have fun. What was David talking about? She knew before she'd started, what she'd be getting into. She was a nerd, a female, a Latina. She was almost the exact opposite of the people who usually signed up to the academy. Those people were usually white males who preferred spending their free time at a gun range, and who scared kids for the fun of it. Amy just wanted to read books and knit. 

Still she was nothing if not perseverant, and she made it through six months of blatant sexism and racism, of being ignored by the instructors in favour of the dumber, but taller, men. 

She thought it would be better when she finally got her assignment, when she was placed in a medium sized precinct in Brooklyn, the Six-Four. She'd be an officer, and she would solve crime, and they would see how smart she was- 

It didn't get better. All the questions that had risen in her mind when she was at the academy - for example, _why am I doing this, why am I with these idiots_ \- didn't go away. They got bigger. 

She'd had her fair share of being bullied in middle school. The dorky kids with glasses were always fair game, weren't they? She realised she was working with a bunch of bullies, a group of people who realised they had more power than the average civilian, and for some reason, were determined to abuse it. The system taught them to abuse it.

She was scared, but she kept telling herself, _it'll be better when I'm a detective. Just one year of patrolling and then I'll be a detective, and maybe I'll be transferred, and it'll be okay. It'll be okay. I will be okay._

She kept her mouth shut and her head down and did her work and tried not to let the other cops get to her, when they teased her for being stuck-up, when she insisted on following procedure, when she stopped them from being too trigger-happy. She ignored their jibes and their snarky comments and their objectification. 

And then her captain forced himself on her. 

As she stumbled back to her apartment, breathless and frightened, she tried to be mad at herself. _She should have seen the signs, he was ways a bit too generous with the hugs, he did seem to prefer her over others, but that was because she was a good cop, not because he was sexually attracted to her-_

Amy Santiago was not stupid. Deep down, she knew it was _not her fault_. She knew she was a victim of a crime, a victim of years, decades, _generations_ of sexism and misogyny. 

She knew she deserved better. 

It took her a couple of days for the shock to wear off. But then she steeled herself. And made a decision.

CHARLES

Charles was always a happy-go-lucky, exuberant person with a heart of gold. He was definitely one of the smartest of the Boyle cousins, and they believed he would take New York by storm. 

He was good at many things, and bad at so many others. He was a hard worker, and he knew he can do anything he put his mind to.

On the Boyle Family vacation, at age nineteen, Charles Boyle solved the mystery of Nana Boyle's missing dentures, and thus also prevented her from burning down the house. Turned out twelve year old Milton Boyle had stolen them in an attempt to scare Becca and Christina, his older cousins; he'd lied about it because everyone was terrified of Nana. 

Charles was congratulated, complimented, cheered. He'd fought crime! Milton would never play pranks again! 

"You should be a detective, or an FBI agent," Susan told him. And Susan was the most unsure of them all! And when she said anything with such conviction, it had to be worth listening to, right!?

Wrong. 

He thought about it, he considered it, he almost enrolled at the Police Academy. But at age twenty three, he met Genevieve in the shop he bought Takoyaki from. She was victim of the faulty law system. She'd been wrongfully jailed, just because some lazy cop had decided to believe a man's testimony over hers. 

A year and hundreds of thousands of lawyer fees later, she'd gotten out, but she'd faced a lifetime's worth of trauma in those twelve months, at the age of twenty five the law system had put her through the trauma of a lifetime.

He'd broken down at her story, held her as she'd cried.

He stopped considering becoming a cop then. He was made for lovin', his grandfather used to say. And being a cop seemed to mean the complete opposite of that. 

.TERRY 

Terry went to Syracuse on a football scholarship. He majored in Art, and headed to the police academy as soon as he graduated. He knew he wanted to become a cop ever since he'd been saved from bullies by a kindly officer who'd taken pity on him. 

He cruised through it, for the most part. Academy, Beat Cop, Detective, Sergeant. 

Then he had kids. 

The world changes when you have kids. It's just not you, anymore. There are tiny humans, dependent on you, for every damn thing. All your priorities change. Nothing else matters, but the health and safety of your kids. 

He saw the world how it really was, maybe with a heightened sense of reality that having twins gave him. He spent almost fourteen hours a day at work, at a thankless job where everyone around him seemed to do the opposite of what they were supposed to do. Job satisfaction was a joke, the pay was laughable, and the therapists' fees just weren't worth it. 

So when the opportunity came to jump ship, he jumped the _fuck_ outta that ship. 

HOLT

With a mother as a highly revered judge, Raynond was acquainted with the law enforcement system and its fallacies pretty early on in life. When his sister's boyfriend became a victim of racial profiling, he was determined, to make a change. From the inside.

He was black. He was gay. He knew it was not going to be easy. But he worked harder than the rest of them and he could achieve anything he wanted. 

Raymond had quite a one track mind. When he put his mind to something, he achieved it.  
But this time, his grand plans just didn't seem to take off. 

They laughed at him, they mocked him, they wrote him off. His hard work, gone to waste! But, he'd been taught never to give up, never to give in, and he soldiered on. And on and on and on. _It just never seemed to change._

Day after day, Kevin watched as Holt grew more and more dejected - denied a chance, denied opportunities, denied his own command. Kevin tried very hard not to say anything. Raymond knew about Kevin's feelings towards police, and he feared that speaking up about it would lead to arguments. 

Kevin knew Raymond needed his support, so he kept quiet, and rubbed Raymond's shoulders when he needed a comfort, and let him rant without uttering a single word. 

Until one day.  
One day, in 2020, when the world rose, as one, finally spurred to call for justice, to demand their birth rights. Raymond Holt watched as his colleagues tortured the very ones they'd sworn to protect, and the next day, Raymond Holt handed in his resignation from the NYPD.


	2. Solutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //////TW////// mentions of sexual assault

TERRY

He was offered a job at a security company, where he had to work from 9 to 5, at a desk, and make administrative decisions and creative decisions and then go home and cuddle his three daughters. 

He took it, and left the precinct and the NYPD and his gun and badge, without so much as a backward glance.

JAKE

With his mother's faith, his Nana's encouragement, and Gina's random mumbled words of support, Jake pulled himself together. He went back to college, got himself a degree in Computer Science. Turned out programming was all about a huge problem waiting to be solved. And he could pretend he was writing code for national security or whatever. He was having fun! He got a job at a start-up in DUMBO and spent his days drinking orange soda and making fun of his boss, and nights trying to avoid getting set up with Gina's dancer friends. 

He had a great apartment, a great job, an okay salary, a terrible car and a happy life. 

He still felt something was missing though, and he tried and tried to find it, but he just couldn't what it was. But for the most part, he was happy.

ROSA

She was smart, she knew she could have the world at her feet if she wanted it. She got her GED at seventeen, and her scores were amazing. 

But everywhere she went, she felt unsettled, like she just couldn't fit in. She went to college, did pretty decently. She got into med school, but passed it over in favour of business school. She learned a lot in business school, but she couldn't see a future there. She got a pilot's license on the side, just for something to do, and it was another feather in her cap, sure. But it just didn't mean anything.

She wanders the world; Amsterdam, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Cairo, Buenos Aires.   
But her city, her NYC, calls her back, and she goes, hoping against hope she'd find what she needed to. 

She makes up with her parents. Her mom takes time, but comes around eventually. They nudge her, and she finds her way back to med school. She's good at it, she has a steady hand, she's accepted into the Neurosurgery program easily. 

To blow off steam, she starts dancing again, which is where she meets Gina. They start sleeping with each other, and before they know it, they're falling in love.   
Slowly, surely, Rosa starts becoming comfortable with herself. But she cannot shake the feeling that there is still something left to do.

AMY 

It takes her a while to get back on her feet. Her family is disappointed, and half of her is still shocked at her own 'impudence', as her father said. 

A few of her brothers, Ben and Tony and Felix, they're amazing, they help her get through it. But her heart breaks for the people, who do not have a support system, the lonely, the abandoned, the scared. _No one should go through this alone,_ she thinks. 

She's still dithering over what to do with her life, because Amy, who plans for everything, hadn't planned for this. She spends her days in the library, reading, studying. She gives the MCAT, the LSAT, the CFA, just because she can. Of course, she passes all of them, but Ben takes one look at her LSAT scores and says, "Amy, you should be a lawyer." She balks at this, because her family hates attorneys, but she's not nine years old anymore. She's twenty four and she's smarter and bolder and she wants to help. 

She gets into the NYU School of Law, and fits in perfectly - it's a lot of reading, and then arguing about what she'd read. Perfect for Amy Santiago. 

She passes with flying colors and is offered jobs at top firms throughout the country. She turns them all down, much to her parent's chagrin. She opens her own firm, dedicated to working assault and rape cases. She also dabbles in immigration law. A lot of her work is pro bono and sometimes she's eating ramen for six nights in a row, but now she's 28 and she's got the best job in the world. Some nights, when it's just her and the her knitting needles, she feels a bit alone, but then she gets a call and it's another person saying they got her number from a friend, and could she help them too, and then she feels not so alone. 

CHARLES 

Charles and Genevieve open a Food- Art Fusion Gallery. It's a strange, mind-boggling concept, but the hippies of Brooklyn just eat it up. They're famous and raking it in like leaves in the fall. It's not for everyone, and the people from the dance studio upstairs curse it out for the weird smells emanating from it at all hours of the day, but one day Charles takes them Bone Broth because he they've been practicing for four hours for an upcoming competition and they're sore as hell, and an unlikely friendship is formed between the leader of the dance troupe, Gina and Charles. They're more like frenemies, Charles thinks, but when Gina tells him he better have a batch of broth upstairs in five, Charles knows she trusts him. He asks Nikolaj to get the the bigger jars from the back. They had loads of broth to deliver.

AMY, ROSA, JAKE AND CHARLES

Rosa operated on Zack Villa, he had a brain aneurysm. He barely makes it. Rosa is invested in his case, she waits by his bedside night after night.   
She feels drawn to him. Maybe it's the fact that he's a runaway, brought by his found family. She feels a strange kinship, a protectiveness. She pays his hospital bills, and he cries when he finds out. 

He tells her his story. Almost 50-60 teenagers and young adults, seeking shelter in an abandoned warehouse, waiting for the day they're found out, just trying to get by- 

_It's life coming full circle_ , Rosa thinks. She's going to help them.

Gina, who is living with Rosa now, teaches them dance, for free. Some are _really_ good, they win at nationals, something Gina's original troupe could never have done.

With Gina, comes Jake, who helps the kids with computers, helps them fill online applications for college, for jobs, for online classes; and lets them stay at his apartment and loans out his car. They teach him to become more accepting of his bisexuality, and in them, Jake finds a family. 

Rosa scopes out Amy when they need help for a case, 17 year old Rhea who was molested by her employer. Amy works tirelessly for a month, and they win the case. 

They go out for celebratory drinks that night. Rosa and Gina and Amy, and they invite Jake as well, who has nothing to do, and Charles and Genevieve, who have been providing food and employment for the kids at the shelter since the day they heard about it. 

It's an unlikely group of friends, brought together by destiny, but Jake feels this was, somehow, meant to be.

_Another_ thing Jake feels, is very flustered, when Amy is around. She seems to take his breath away, the way she can switch from confident, brazen lawyer; to geeky, quiet book-lover in an instant. 

It takes a while for them to find their rhythm, and then Amy has a very difficult case and Jake helps her through it, and she kisses him when they win.

He confesses, and so does she, and thus begins the romance of a lifetime- or so Charles calls it. Rosa and Gina tend to gag if Jake and Amy so much as look in each other's direction.

One day, Jake tells her he did elective community service all throughout high school, and she drags him to the nearest closet. When they emerge, half an hour later, Jake seems to be unable to speak. He pulls at his collar nervously, like he was hiding something underneath. Amy only looks all too satisfied. 

Jake finds what he was missing, in Amy. Amy feels complete, when she is with Jake. They're the missing pieces in each other's life puzzles. 

Rosa finally knows, she's fitting in, she's satisfied with her life. She doesn't feel so angry all the time.

They built up their family, their home, from scratch. They all had setbacks, they were all confused.   
But they were meant to be together. And they found their way to each other, and tried, in their own tiny ways, to make the world a better place.


	3. The Only Answer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And how they all come together a.k.a. the founding (finding??) of the Found Family
> 
> Thank you to everyone who gave their kudos, and for y'all who commented! You made me want to continue the story, and tell it completely. Thanks!! 
> 
> Once again, please have a look at the link below before reading ahead! 
> 
> [Black Lives Matter](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/)

Raymond Holt had a secret- YouTube was his coping mechanism. After days of hard work, sometimes he just wanted to unwind, and he would fall into the YouTube search hole. He'd start off watching 'A Modern Day Analysis of Marcel Tabuteau's symphonies' and end up with 'How To Tell if your Teenange Son is Watching Porn' (He was curious, okay?! The answer to that, universally, _had to be_ yes!) He didn't even have or _want_ a teenage son. 

This is how he stumbled onto Ginazon - a channel by influencer Gina Linetti. Something about the woman's infinite confidence and straightforwardness, mixed with her wacky thoughts and mind-boggling ideas, endeared him, and soon he was diving deep into the G-hive. 

_________________________________

Terry found out that Lieutenant Holt had resigned from the NYPD, and immediately headed over to convince him to join their firm. (yes, Terry had risen through the ranks, and was now, a major shareholder.) The firm had been trying to headhunt Raymond Holt for years, even before Terry; his impeccable observation skills and his stoic demeanor being something that the company highly desired.

Holt refused before Terry could even speak, but Terry had found a leeway. _Kevin_. Kevin stood behind Ray, and his eyes implored Terry to, _please, get my husband a job, he cannot mope around at home anymore._

"Raymond," Terry said. "I was in the police force too, maybe you don't remember-" 

"Oh, I do. Twenty five years ago, we worked together for a couple months. Though you were significantly-" he made a pretty rude gesture with his arms. Kevin winced and buried his face in his hands.

To Terry's credit, he took it in stride. "Fatter, yes. Anyway, I know the dilemma you've been through. I've been there myself. Look, just come work with us till you find something worthwhile. Just for something to do."

"I think you should go for it, Raymond." Kevin stated, trying to hide the deploration in his voice. 

So Raymond did go for it, but only because Cheddar seemed to be tired of having him around the house all day.

_________________________________

Gina contacted Terry's company because she'd been getting those annoying death threats again. To be fair, she'd been recieving such threats for a long time, probably since she was teenager. (Apparently something about Gina just rubbed people the wrong way, not that she cared.) But those death threats had been sporadic and silly, and now they were regular and irritating. Also, she and Rosa had adopted a child a few years ago. Little Iggy was five years old, and she was Gina's absolute most favorite thing on the planet. So when the threats started coming in, it wasn't herself she was worried about. It was her family.

Terry said they would handle it, to not worry, and then announced to the firm they'd secured a major contract. 

It was Holt's first project, and though he was definitely a fan of Gina, he had enough control over his emotions to rein it in. Gina, for her part, took a liking to the sarcastic, sharp man who seemed to appreciate her wit _and_ her love of Kwazy Kupcakes. 

That was how Holt was introduced to the rest of the team, and the work they did. He started spending time at the warehouse, getting familiar with the kids, and their problems. He took them bird-watching and hula-hooping. 

Most importantly, he shared _stories._ Stories of growing up gay, of being sidelined, of finding his one true love. The kids boo-ed when he relayed his wedding story though. _Apparently it wasn't cool to have a quickie wedding anymore._

Here, he found the kind of family he sorely needed when he was a scared gay black teenager. He had to struggle for support then, and he was glad that these kids had someone to lean on. He was even more glad that the 'someone' could be himself.

_________________________________

Terry was told about Gina's involvement in helping the kids by Holt, but he was really introduced to the club by Cagney and Lacey. They were Nikolaj's classmates, and when Nikolaj threw his birthday party at the warehouse, all three of his daughters were invited. The kids spent their time making posters for the New York Pride Parade that was to happen the next week, and then just ran around chasing each other with paint. 

"Quite an enormous invitation card you made," Terry mentioned to Charles, as they watched their kids get paint all over their aprons. 

"Yeah. Some parents take offense when they find their kids taking part in activities, that they call, 'gay', and then we have to wield the angry phone calls and demands to take Niko out of school. The kids that don't come, we can tell come from homophobic households. So I tell Niko to look after them, just in case these kids turn out to be homosexual, and their parents harrass them for it." 

Terry raised his eyebrows. "That's quite a plan." 

"Start them young, I say. Niko has grown up around all these wonderful people. And it's how I met some of the best friends I've ever had, including Niko's godfather, Jake! Have you met him? He's one of the most wonderful humans on this planet!" 

He pointed towards a corner, where a man in a red plaid shirt and black jeans was trying to wrestle a jar of paint from a toddler's hands. Next to him, a pregnant lady watched in horror as the man lost the fight, and the kid got blue paint all over itself, leaving the man looking sheepish.

Charles was greatly enjoying the scene, it seemed. "Oh, Amy's going to make him wash all that paint off. Poor Jakey! Maybe I should volunteer to do it-" 

Charles beckoned the disgruntled couple over. "Hey, Jake! Do you want me to wash Mac's things? I know a fantastic way of-" 

"It's okay, Charles, Jake will do it." Amy said. "I told him not to give Mac the big jars, but they _both_ think they're smarter than I am." 

Jake grinned at that. Apparently he was used to being chewed out by his wife. "I would _never_ think that, babe!" 

Before Any could protest, Terry hastened to introduce himself. He felt like he'd seen the woman before, but he just couldn't remember- 

"Hey, aren't you in the NYPD?" Amy asked.

"Not anymore," Terry said. 

The couple exchanged glances, then shot him an understanding look. 

"I was cop, too." Amy began. "I attended a speech you gave at the Annual Sergeant Training Camp."

And Terry realised where he'd seen her. "Hey! Weren't you thrown out of that thing, for gatecrashing?" 

It was Amy's turn to look sheepish. Jake cackled. "Awww, Ames, only _you_ would gatecrash a _training program_ -" 

"I wanted to be sergeant one day, so I just came to pick up some tips! It was useless anyway, they didn't say anything of substance. I have no clue why they're so secretive about it. Y'know what, I'm going to go find Mac-" She waddled away, muttering under her breath. 

"She's one of the best attorneys in the city." Jake said, proudly. "So it's fun when I have the upper hand in an argument. Sorry, I'm Jake."

And so another relationship was cemented. And when Jake and Amy found out they were expecting twin girls, they spent the days badgering the Jeffords with calls for advice. 

And from the next time onwards, that they all met at the bar, Terry and Sharon became regular fixtures. Terry helped find old gym equipment to set up for the kids, and trained them after work everyday. Sharon's overall motherly demeanor (and her roast chicken) made her a fan-favorite at the warehouse.

_________________________________

Gina asked Raymond Holt to appear in one of her videos. She asked him to talk about his experiences being a part of the minority, of growing up queer, of conquering it all, and finding love. 

It went _viral_. His deadpan delivery made for hilarious content, and _damn_ , could the man tell a story. His words were so inspiring, that viewers were left with a sense of reverence and wonder. 

Jake and Amy watched the speech thrice, and didn't move until Mac started wailing. 

"I want that guy to be my mentor for how to live life," Amy said, breathlessly.

Next to her, Jake was similarly indisposed. "I want him to be my _dad_." 

Raymond Holt became a Ginazon semi-regular feature, appearing in videos once every while to dole out advice and on rare occasions, do dares that Gina forced on him, like speaks only in contractions for a day, or talk about how death metal was comparable to 18th century waltz music. 

Cheddar also began appearing on feeds, and soon became everyone's favorite 'thick king', giving rise to a whole new faction of fans in the G-hive. They called themselves 'Cheeselings.' Kevin was not amused, but he came around in the end.

And so Raymond Holt began going to the bar with them. They were younger than him, and with very, _very_ different tastes in, well, life, but they were all kind, caring people who somehow, had some tragic relation to the police force. It was probably the one thing they all had in common (apart from the 'I-want-to-help-people-drive), but it was also the thing they gave the least importance to. Bygones were bygones. Today, they were at a different place.

On the happy drunk nights, which were a-plenty, they made ridiculous bets and planned over-the-top heists, and Raymond found himself drawn to the insanity that ensued. Just like with Cheddar, Kevin came around soon enough, and Holt delighted in seeing this competitive, carefree side of Kevin, that had been missing for the past few years, because Kevin had spent too much time worrying about his husband.

Their relationship was blossoming, their lives were more fulfilling. Holt began spending a lot of time at the warehouse, giving up his job at the security firm (he couldn't have Gina as his client anymore, what with the personal connection, etc). He taught the kids how to play the flute and how to paint still life. It didn't pay, but Kevin's tenure at Columbia was more than enough to keep them comfortable. And his once-addiction of gambling translated well into making use of the stock market, trading and investing turning into his primary source of income. And _boy_ , was he _good_ at it. Amy practically begged him to teach her his ways, and that's how they formed the mentor-mentee bond she so desired.

He became closer with the others.  
He helped Rosa come out to her parents, and sometimes when it was just the two of them, they would talk about the world and its unfairness. There was no better person to be _bitter_ with, than Rosa.

Charles, he took cooking tips from. They filmed it for Ginazon, Charles teaching Holt how to make scrambled eggs. It was such a _disaster_. The G- hive _loved_ it.

Terry tried to get him into gymming, but the thing they bonded most over was working for the warehouse. They were natural leaders, these two men, that also had very creative minds. They planned and plotted and helped Rosa get the NGO status that would help with funding and opportunities for the kids.

And then, there was Jake. Holt was wary of the goofy, clownish man at first, but Jake would _just not_ leave him alone. Whether it was turning up at his hula-hooping class, or bringing his kid to the same park where they walked Cheddar, and trying to engage Holt in a game of catch; Jake was there. And he was always just _this_ far off from saying or doing something that would get under Holt's skin. He couldn't find it in him to question the man, though. Holt let Jake buzz around him, like an annoying fly that you just couldn't bother to get up and catch, only swat away from time to time.

The breakthrough came one night in the bar. It was a school night, and everyone left, except for him and Jake, who was steadily getting more and more drunk. 

"Amy and Mac are at her parents' for the weekend," he slurred. "I couldn't go 'cause of that work conference. Also, her parents hate me. But Mac loves spending time with his grandparents." Holt hummed in response, already knowing all of this. 

"Thanks for waiting with me." Jake continued, thumbing the label on his fourth beer. "It's so weird going back to an empty house. It happened all the time when I was a kid, and I hated it then, and I hate it now." 

Holt was tipsy enough that his face reflected his surprise. "You lived alone as a kid?" 

Jake shook his head, morosely. "Dad left. Mom worked like, three jobs to keep the house and the car. Fifth grade was particularly depressing." 

And then it tumbled out. Jake's daddy issues, his lifelong feeling of resentment and repressed anger, his worries about his being a good dad to his son, his attachment to Holt because of his father-figure persona, and his feelings of inadequacy that permeated all through his life and everything he did. 

Hold was very - surprisingly, so _very_ \- flattered at being referred to as a father figure. He'd never felt the pull of fatherhood in his life, and Kevin and him had never wanted children. But here, drinking with Jake, at 1 AM on a weeknight, Raymond Holt, for the first time wondered what it would be like to be a dad. What it would be like to have children.

Not that he immediately went and looked up adoption agencies. He did have kids, he realised. Jake and Amy and Rosa and Gina and Charles. They all looked up to him, respected him, sought his advice, liked his presence. And even though he didn't raise them, he did help them navigate the rocky road of adulthood, and Holt decided he was proud of himself for that. And he loved them as his own, he truly did. 

From that day on, he knew he'd found himself a family. A bunch of rowdy, demanding, _wonderful_ kids, with Terry as his co-parent, and so many grandchildren. Mac, Niko, Cagney, Lacey, Ava, Iggy, and the three impending arrivals - Rosa and Gina were adopting again - all called him Grandfather.(He liked that better than Grandpa) (Terry's kids counted as his grandkids. They didn't know how that worked, but it seemed right that way. Yes, they had a whole discussion about it.) 

All of them - Kevin and Ray, Terry's family, Charles' family, Rosa and Gina and Enigma and Arrow; and Jake and Amy and Mac and Miriam and Maya: celebrated holidays and birthdays together, and soon they were all inseparable. They relied on one another, and there was love to be found in everything they did for each other. All of them had spent years, hurting and searching and feeling incomplete, but they all came together and fit together like puzzle pieces, and now, the picture was whole.

Their hearts were whole.

And, when they worked, hand in hand, to make the world a better place, one lonely kid at a time, each and every single one of them felt contentment and gratification and fulfillment; and when, after a hard day's work, they sat together around the bar, they felt at peace. They were a family, and wherever they were, together, was _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The name Arrow is straight outta Gina's list, and I chose it because it seemed like something Rosa would like, too.
> 
> \- Maya and Miriam are Jake and Amy's twin girls. I really like the name Miriam, I feel like it could have been Jake's Nana's name! 
> 
> \- thank you for reading! I would love to know if you think there are any more stories I could tell with these characters.
> 
> \- fUcK tHe PoLicE
> 
> \- please do spare a few moments to sign the petitions and share the link on your social media. If you can donate time, or money, then please do so. Let's strive to make the world a better place! I'm not from the US, but from a country that has similar problems with the police and racism. Maybe a change in one place will trigger change throughout the world! ACAB
> 
> Lots of love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, feel free to discuss in the comments!
> 
> For our lord and saviour, Stephanie Beatriz.


End file.
